Scuttlebutt

THE BAGHDAD ZOO, a poem by Brian Turner

Is the world safer? No. It's not safer in Iraq. --Hans Blix

An Iraqi northern brown bear mauled a man on a streetcorner, dragging him down an alleyas shocked onlookers cried for it to stop. There were tanks rolling their heavy trackspast the museum and up to the Ministry of Oil. One gunner watched a lion chase down a horse. Eaten down to their skeletons, the giraffeslooked prehistoric, unreal, their neckstoo fragile, too graceful for the 21st Century. Dalmatian pelicans and marbled tealsflew over, frightened by the rotorwashof blackhawk helicopters touching down. One baboon even escaped from the city limits. It was found wandering in the desert, confusedby the wind and the sand of the barchan dunes.